Best Walking Trail in Austin, Texas - A Beautiful walking-trail along the Colorado River, from Congress Bridge to Zilkar Park in Austin
After walking around Austin city and it's downtown if I have to recommend one place for walk, then it will be walk along the Colorado River from Congress Bridge to Zilkar Park. And there is an obvious questions why do I claim that it's the best walking trail in Austin city. This Blogpost will answer all those questions but in short - this walking trail exposes you to lot of diverse things of Austin in terms of landscapes, downtown, river activities, parks, food trucks and a lot more which we will share as part of this blogpost.
After exploring Texas Capitol and then Cathedral of Saint Mary , I walked towards the famous Congress Bridge of Austin. It was the week, when SXSW was happening in the town so the whole downtown was full of artists, cameras, police etc.
Above photograph shows you the Congress bridge on the right and downtown is on other side of the Colorado river. So I walked over the bridge and came to this side of the river. This photograph is from evening which was clicked later. I wanted to give a sense about position of Downtown the spot from where this walk starts. So when you come to Congress Bridge from Austin downtown, there are the stairs on the left side. Just go down from these stairs and then start walking along the river. Now this walk will explore you to stunning views of downtown and reflections of these high buildings in the clear waters of Colorado River.
Related Blogpost - The Texas Capitol - This stunning place is must visit around Austin city of Texas state in USA
This water body also mentioned as Lady Bird lake at times. At this moment, I don't know how that boundary is defined, but for this post I will use Colorado river reference. Above photograph shows Downtown on other side and 2 bridges. As you walk along the river walking trail, you come across multiple bridges and they look stunning. Above photograph is an example about the kind of views you see through frames of these bridges.
After walking for some time, I came across Stevie Ray Vaughan Memorial which is located a nice location across the river and in front of a huge green park. There were lot of families having some good time together in this park and specially families with dogs. It didn't look like a dog park but there were lot of dogs playing with each other. I sat here for few minutes and resumed my walk, as I was aiming to reach the famous Zilkar Park of Austin.
Related Blogpost - The Beautiful Cathedral of Saint Mary - A brilliant architecture in the middle of the Austin downtown, Texas
As I walked ahead, the scenes started changing. There were lot of people kayaking in the lake and quite a few boats had people doing serious fishing. Some of the boats looked seriously equipped with fishing gears. Above photograph shows park of Lady Bird lake with multiple kayaks, boats and fishing enthusiasts.
During this walk, you will different kinds of birds making sounds around you. Above photograph shows male Cardinal. This one was constantly making sounds and can be checked in the video below.
Above photograph is showing female Cardinal enjoying colorado river views from this walking trail. There were many more but out of reach of my camera.
Across this walking trail, there are different seating section created. Above photograph shows 2 girls sitting on the wall facing Colorado River and Downtown on the other side. Certainly these are not the seating places, but the view looked cool to be photographed :).
This whole trail was busy with cyclists, runners, joggers, families, and pets. All that fuels so much energy and you keep going. It was a Sunday, so probably there were more people out. The video below shows the action on this walking trail around Colorado river in Austin.
Throughout this walk along the Colorado river, you cross multiple bridges which connect South Congress avenue part of the the city with downtown on other side of the river. Some of the bridges are for train line.
During this walk if you look closer to the lake, you will lot of winged wonders flying or floating around. Above photograph shows some of the birds of Austin having some fun in Lady Bird Lake. They were moving away from the shore as I pointed my camera towards them and soon after I moved on as I didn't want to disturb them. I am not happy with this photograph but I am happy that I suppressed my urge after seeing that they were not happy with my presence around them.
And not only birds, I also saw few turtles basking in the sun around the lake.
Above photograph shows shows train bridge over Colorado river.
The Colorado River is an approximately 862 miles long river in the Texas state of USA. It is the 18th longest river in the United States and the longest river with both its source and its mouth within Texas.
Colorado river flows generally southeast from Dawson County through Ballinger, Marble Falls, Austin, Bastrop, Smithville, La Grange, Columbus, Wharton, and Bay City, before emptying into the Gulf of Mexico at Matagorda Bay.
If you walk opposite to the Zilkar park, there Broadway walk around Lady Bird Lake of Austin and that looks pretty cool. I didn't go that side and hopefully will do that when I there next time.
When in Austin, you can take Kayaks or boats on rent. So not only Kayaking, you can ride boats here. For that you need driving license. Isn't that cool? And during evenings there are cruises around Congress Bridge to see thousands of bats flying high in the sky.
Above photograph shows view of the Austin Downtown on other side of this walking trail along Colorado river. So even if you walk around this trail during the day, it's recommended to visit again during sunset as you see stunning views during blue hour. And that's the time when you also see thousands of bats floating around Congress Bridge. We shall share more about that in separate blogpost.
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